Egg Dyeing — Naturally

Colored Easter eggs have been around far longer than Paas dye tablets. Water and vinegar are still used in today’s commercial dyes, but instead of chemical tablets, people used foods & spices to color their eggs. Imagine never again worrying if the egg is safe to eat because a tiny bit of dye seeped through a crack and now your child is happily munching away at that colored stripe of egg. The colors may be a bit softer, and the process may take a bit longer, but if anything that should be welcomed as more time with your family engaged in a fun and healthy activity.

There are two ways to dye eggs using natural ingredients: Hot dye and cold dye. For each method, make sure you wash uncooked eggs in soap and water and handle with gloves while dying to avoid transferring oils from your skin which will prevent the dye from sticking. Gloves (and newspaper on your table) will also help the dyes stay exclusively on your eggs. Finish up by rubbing a small amount of oil into the dried, colored eggs for a faint sheen or leave plain for a matte look.

Hot Dyeing Method

This method uses the time spent boiling the eggs to simultaneously dye them. Simply place your eggs in a non-aluminum pan, and add water, vinegar & dyeing ingredients (see below). Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 15 to 30 minutes. The longer you leave the eggs in the water, the darker the color will be, but the tougher the eggs will be as well. To get darker colors while leaving the eggs soft, try the…

Cold Dyeing Method

This method starts with pre-boiled eggs. Add water, vinegar, and dyeing ingredients to a pan, bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for at least 15 minutes or until desired color is reached. Strain the mixture and let cool. Add cooked eggs to dye for at least 15 minutes. For exceptionally rich colors, put in refrigerator overnight.

Alterations & Decorations

Tie-Dye: Rub clean, uncooked eggs with vinegar, wrap in onion skins, bind with kitchen string or rubber bands and simmer for 20 minutes.

Stripes: Wrap rubber bands around un-dyed eggs before dying for white stripes, or around dyed eggs before re-dying in a different dye for colored stripes.

Patterns: Wrap egg in onion skin or small leaves after dyeing but before completely dried for texture; use clean sponge to dab at dyed egg while still wet for stippling; or use clean, dry cloth to wipe some of the dye from the egg before drying.

Marbleized: Stir a tablespoon of oil into dye mixture for marbling effect. Once dry, re-dye for added variation.

Mosaic: Glue bits of your spices (star anise, peppercorns, powdered spices) or other small food items such as alphabet pasta or grains of rice to your egg for added variety.

Natural Dye Recipes

1 Tbsp. Spices, or 4 c. chopped fruits or vegetables
4 c. water
2 Tbsp. white vinegar

Combine ingredients in a pot, bring to a boil, lower heat and simmer for 15 to 30 minutes. For richer colors, use more spice/food item and/or boil longer.

Colors

Pink/Red: Fresh beets, pickled beet juice, pickled red cabbage juice, cranberries, frozen raspberries

Orange: Yellow onion skins, paprika

Deep Yellow: Ground turmeric

Pale Yellow to Light Green: Spinach leaves, Golden Delicious apple peels

Soft Yellow: Orange or lemon peels, carrot tops or shredded carrots, celery seed, ground cumin

Purple: Red Zinger® tea (or other hibiscus tea)

Blue: Canned blueberries, blackberries, red cabbage leaves, purple grape juice

Beige to Brown: strong brewed coffee, tea, walnuts, dill seeds

Brown to Orange: Chili powder, ground cumin

Round Up & other glyphosate products

Glyphosate is the active ingredient of the herbicide best known commercially as “Roundup.” It is a non-selective, systemic herbicide for controlling weeds in agriculture, forestry, rights-of-way and aquatic systems. Glyphosate disrupts plant growth and eventually causes death by inhibiting synthesis of amino acids. Isopropylamine salt is the most frequently used form of glyphosate.

Human Health Risk Summary

Acute Effects: Some formulations of glyphosate cause extreme irritation of the skin and eyes, such as blurred vision, burning eyes, rashes and skin blisters. Other symptoms reported following acute exposures include: nausea, sore throat, dizziness, gastrointestinal and respiratory tract injuries.

Chronic Effects/Carcinogenicity: Though evidence that glyphosate causes cancer is yet to be established, several animal and human population studies have indicated that it may increase the risk of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, multiply myeloma, pancreatic, thyroid and testicular cancers.

Reproductive & Developmental Toxicity: Glyphosate exposure has been associated with several manifestations of reproductive and developmental impairment. In animal studies, high dose or prolonged exposures have resulted in skeletal malformations, disrupted organ development, and reduced sperm volume and quality. In human population studies, exposure to glyphosate has been connected to an increased rate of miscarriage, reduction in sex hormone production, and disruptions to endocrine system development.

Mutagenicity: Several studies on both animals and humans have suggested that exposure to glyphosate can cause chromosomal aberrations, DNA breaks, and other genetic mutations.

Ecological Hazard Summary

Environmental Fate: Glyphosate has frequently been detected in surface water nation-wide. It tends to bond strongly to soil particles and therefore may be displaced to surface water from movement of soil by wind, erosion, or storm runoff. Drift following arial applications also contributes to the presence of glyphosate in water.

Glyphosate is moderately to highly persistent, with half remaining toxic in soil from 60 days to six months or more, depending on soil conditions. In aquatic environments, half may remain toxic for several weeks to several months.

Risk to Non-Target Flora & Fauna: Because of drift and offsite movement from wind and rain, glyphosate poses a considerable risk to non-target plant and animal species. A significant amount of glyphosate spray applications drift off-site (from 14% to 78%), affecting plants 130 feet away, and residues have been detected up to 1,300 feet downwind.
Glyphosate has been shown to disrupt the immune systems and cause genetic abnormalities in fish. Similarly, it causes genetic, developmental and reproductive mutation in amphibians.

The balance of soil organisms is disrupted by glyphosate, which leaches from the roots of sprayed plants into the surrounding soil. Several studies have indicated that pathogenic fungi and other crop pests increase in numbers or have less competition when glyphosate is present in soil.

Toxicity of Other Ingredients

Commercial products such as Roundup are composed of the active ingredient (approximately 40% of the solution) and other ingredients that improve its effectiveness. These compounds exhibit toxicity at much higher levels than glyphosate alone. One such chemical, polyethoxylated tallowamine (POEA), is three times as acutely toxic to humans as glyphosate alone.

A product commonly mixed with glyphosate formulations to improve performance in the environment was found to be 100 times more toxic to aquatic invertebrates. Other added ingredients have been shown to damage cellular DNA, cause cancer or birth defects, and disrupt reproductive function in both humans and animals.

Summary

Glyphosate and commercially available products containing this compound are of particular concern to human health and the environment, due to: 1) some evidence of carcinogenicity, reproductive/developmental toxicity, endocrine system and genetic toxicity to humans; 2) potential adverse effects to non-target plant and animal species due to overspray, drift, and displacement; and 3) the potentially sever impact of many of its additives such as POEA, which have been identified as extremely hazardous to both humans and animals.